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June 10 bread

June 10 bread

No Knead Half WW

This is the bread I baked yesterday, using half and half whole wheat and white flour. It barely rose, though got a little oven spring. But it isn't a brick! The flavor is very good and the crumb is nice and soft. I think I overproofed by about 2 hours, but may have the other elements right.

Here's the dough just before going in the oven. The gluten strands on the dough surface didn't hold when I rounded the dough. You can see how torn up it looks. I stopped shaping because I was making it worse with each little stretch. Would the overproofing account for that? Quite a contrast to my last dough pic, isn't it! It's not well-risen, but it passed the finger-stick test, so in the oven it went. I didn't think it would take a free-form bake, so used my 4 quart saucepan for baking it.

Once the dough is losing it like this, is there any way to return it to a nice plump state that holds together? It actually has risen some in the colander since I shaped and placed the dough there, but the dough seemed rather torn up, and further rounding was just making it worse.

I should clarify that the overproofing seemed to be in the 18 hour stage. The dough seemed a bit liquid in the center when I dumped it out on the board.

Here are the exact ingredients used, with the standard NYT Jim Leahy method

Comments

KipperCat - I just posted a comment about using parchment paper to line my banneton and lifting paper and dough and gently lowering it into the hot pot. It greatly improved my oven spring - worth a try. Sorry, I have only just figured out how to add comments in the proper place - I must have been driving people crazy. My other thought is - are you using instant yeast? And I see you used 1 3/4 c water where I use 1 1/2c. Have you ever checked out Eric Rusch's video on Breadtopia? Really helped me to see what I was supposed to be doing. Good luck, A

Thanks Annie. I increased the water because of the whole wheat flour. Do you use 1-1/2 cups water with whole wheat flour? I started another whole wheat loaf tonight. I'll watch the timing on it a bit better. I hope to eventually get a 100% whole wheat loaf with this method that we like.

I haven't tried a ww version of the NK bread but Eric (Breadtopia) shows a recipe using spelt which I want to try. He also has a new video of one with steel cut oats. So many breads, so little time! I think you have to keep trying, or at least I hope that one day my bread will be as perfect as some of the real bakers on this site, A

Well, I couldn't stand it and had to try the spelt version, which of course must be very much like your whole wheat one. I hadn't planned on baking so my spelt flour was in the freezer and my starter was in the frig. I had fed it this afternoon and knew it was raring to go, so I warmed the water very slightly and hope it will work. I used about 1 cup of bread flour and the rest spelt and weighed a total of 16oz. of flour plus 1/3cup of starter. The recipe called for up to 1 2/3 cups water but I used the 1 1/2 cups. Do hope I'm not creating another doorstop! I'll let you know how it goes, A

Annie, Good luck with your spelt. That's one flavor I look forward to trying sometime down the road. My latest whole wheat turned out much nicer, though still not as great as the white flour version. I need to recharge my camera battery so I can get a new photo up.

Kippercat, the bread turned out really well! I gave it only 13 hours because it looked ready, and although it was very wet it was easy to fold. Let it rise in the banneton lined with parchment and then lifted it onto the hot stone. I planned on using my ss dutch oven base as a lid, but the dough was so well risen it was tricky getting the pan in place and I managed to burn my thumb in the process. Then the dough hit the top of the "lid" and I think it would have risen more if I had used the pot the usual way. Live and learn. The crumb was full of small holes and the crust crackled nicely, and the flavor is excellent. I pulled the parchment paper out when I removed the cover. Made some tomato, paprika and coconut milk soup for supper so that I had an excuse to eat some, A

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